Illustrated Turkish history of the Russo-Japanese War

Fuad Erden, Ali / Erdemgil Senai, Osman. Musavver 1904-1905 Rus-Japon seferi. Ilan-i harbdan muahede-i sulhiyeye kadar güderan eden wukuat-i harbiyeyi kafe-i tefsilatile camidir.

€ 950,00

First volume of this illustrated history on the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 in Ottoman Turkish, featuring numerous in-text illustrations and a large colour folding map depicting China and Manchuria, Korea, Japan, and Russia at the moment of conflict.

The Russo-Japanese war was one of the precipitating events of the 20th century, and played its part in leading Russia towards destabilization and revolution as well as affecting the trajectory of Japan's relations with the West. It is of particular interest to Turkish history and indeed was of great contemporary interest in Ottoman Turkey; the outbreak of war "generated waves of enthusiasm in Turkey as a traditional arch-rival of Russia", though the results of war "on the empire proved disastrous" (Esenbel). Many in Turkey identified with the Japanese, having recently fought and lost territory to Russia themselves. Though the official Ottoman stance was neutrality, in an attempt not to antagonize Russia, individuals felt differently: "When Muslim newspapers celebrated Japan’s defeat of Russia as the victory of the downtrodden Eastern peoples over the invincible West, a Turkish nationalist feminist, Halide Edip, like many other women, named her son Togo after the commander of the Japanese fleet, Admiral Heihachiro Togo" (Esenbel). The Ottoman fascination with the war and with Japan is clear from the text and its numerous illustrations of Japanese people and scenes.

There are at least four Persian translations of this history held in the Afghanistan Digital Library in Kabul, but no copy of the original version, which, interestingly, is always labelled as "unknown Turkish work" by the cataloguer.

Spine shaken and splitting, binding remains firm.